Tamesis Issue 206 November 2008
Editorial
Just time to write a very quick editorial � it�s the baroque day on Saturday and the
Greenwich exhibition the weekend after, so I�m rather short of time.
We haven�t got enough volunteers yet to help on the stand at the exhibition,
particularly on the Sunday, so if you can help for even half an hour please get in touch
with me (secretary
tvemf.org). I will also make a timetable to go on the stand, with
time slots, so that you can sign up on the day when you have a better idea of when
you will be available. It�s just a question of being at the stand to chat to people and
make sure they get the right leaflets, and to take cheques if they want to join. Come
and talk to us there anyway. We�ll be on the left-hand side of the Painted Hall next to
the sheet music tables.
I�ve had a lot of bookings for the Christmas workshop � it�s hard to believe that Philip
Thorby thought �A German Christmas� might not sound sufficiently attractive, but of
course we all know that he will find something interesting in anything he may choose
to conduct. I�m not closing the bookings yet, but please don�t wait too long to apply.
I still particularly need tenors (surprise!) and sackbuts.
A lot of bookings have come in for the baroque chamber music day too, including
quite a number of new people. I�m looking forward to seeing lots of our members
over the next few weeks.
There will not be a Tamesis in January, so if you have any material for January or
February please let me have it in good time for the December edition.
Victoria Helby
Chairman�s Chat
I recently had a particularly busy period when I had Forum events on four successive
Saturdays. It started with the TVEMF Venetian Vespers, then there was a SWEMF
workshop studying music from the time of the restoration of the monarchy with Peter
Leech. He wanted to try music of such composers as Blow and Locke with cornetts
and sackbuts as it might have been done when the inexperienced boys of the newly-
reconstituted Chapel Royal were being supplemented by instruments. I suspect that
the period from 1660 until Purcell came along is a period of musical history that is
rather unfamiliar to most of us but clearly it is worth exploring. My next venture was
to Bosham, near Chichester, to the SEMF workshop directed by A lan Lumsden,
performing music by Sch�tz and Praetorius. We mustered a good group of singers
and instruments and produced an excellent sound. Special thanks must go to Mary
Reynor for her wonderful home-made cakes and to those who helped her with the tea
- it's nice for me not to have to be charman as well as chairman!
The final event in the series was the TVEMF workshop with John Milsom. It was
limited to 40 participants at his insistence which meant that the absence of four ladies
who had been accepted was particularly unfortunate as it left us rather short of high
voices. If you cannot attend a workshop then a phone call or email to the organiser
may enable someone else to take your place (as in this case) or give time for the
allocation of parts to be rearranged. For these reasons we will cash the cheques for
those who simply do not show up. In spite of the slight imbalance in the voices this
was a very successful day which significantly increased my understanding of the music
of Willaert.
I'm looking forward to the Baroque Day and the Early Music Exhibition (always worth
a visit) and of course the Christmas event with the inimitable Philip Thorby.
David Fletcher
Willaert and friends
Once again, the United Reformed Church at Ickenham has been the venue for a
TVEMF event of exceptional quality. It was, as always, a most rewarding experience
to be directed by John Milsom, who led us through a programme of music which
featured masterpieces by composers virtually unknown to the wider world of early
music. Most of us had sung some Mouton (though John expressed astonishment that
not one person admitted to having sung his Salva nos, Domine, with which the
programme ended), and a fair number had sung some Willaert. However, Jacquet of
Mantua and Loyset Pieton were new to us.
Whether or not due to over-indulgence in the consumption of chocolate biscuits which,
we were firmly told, was fatal, it took some little time before we began to produce the
required quality of sound and diction. However, the time spent in bringing us up to
scratch began to pay dividends as we engaged with Willaert�s Christe redemptor
omnium, an alternatim setting in which the polyphonic verses were, successively, in
four, five and six parts, with the two cantus parts in canon in the five-part verse, and
the canon buried in the inner parts (alto I and tenor I) in the six-part verse. We are,
at early music workshops, accustomed to having our attention directed firmly towards
the text, so it was a fascinating and novel experience to be taken on a guided tour of
the musical architecture of the Willaert, to have diatonic and exact canons explained
to us and to be told why and when one or the other was used in the composition.
The second half of the morning was taken up with exploring a hitherto unsung (at
least, in modern times) masterpiece, Plorabant sacerdotes by Jacquet of Mantua.
The Florentine humanist Cosimo Bartoli remarked on a certain stylistic affinity
between the compositions of Willaert and of Jachet, and Allan W Atlas tells us, in his
book Renaissance Music, (Norton, 1998) that in 1550, Antonio Gardano, the publisher
of Willaert�s Musica nova, issued a volume of music whose long title begins with the
words Di Adriano et di Jachet, Jachet being the French-born composer Jacques
Colebault (1483-1559), who was a prolific composer of masses and motets and who
spent over thirty years as the leading composer in Mantua. Renaissance cultural
history suggests that such dynasts as the Gonzaga of Mantua, the Estensi of Ferrara
and the Sforza of Milan bargained, sold, and poached first rank musicians in much the
same way as owners of Premiership football clubs do nowadays with world-class
players, and for amounts not dissimilar when translated into modern currency.
Perhaps Jachet�s lengthy stay in Mantua reflects the status of his patron, the cardinal-
bishop Ercole Gonzaga, as the Roman Abramovitch of the Renaissance musical scene,
able to see off any competition for his star musician.
As with verse 4 of the Willaert, Plorabant sacerdotes has the canon in the two upper
parts, with the three lower parts as an accompaniment. Although we spent a
considerable amount of time on it, and acquitted ourselves tolerably well in the end,
given the time available, it was clear that we had not penetrated very far into its
many complexities.
Next on the programme was O beata infantia, by (I quote from Neil�s note about the
workshop) �the elusive Loyset Pieton, a composer of truly magnificent music whose
biography remains an almost total mystery�. Neither Atlas nor Leeman Perkins, in
Music in the Age of the Renaissance, (Norton, 1999) has a word to say about him. In
this six-part motet for Christmas, specifically for Matins, a richly textured picture is
painted of the ordinary, sad and even sordid aspects of man�s daily life being
transformed by the presence of the blessed infant; the series of metaphorical
contrasts between divine and human attributes ends triumphantly with the splendid
stable being found to contain not only hay for the animals, but the food of angels.
In the final session, as well as revisiting Plorabant sacerdotes, we performed Willaert�s
In convertendo Dominus, for two four-part choirs singing antiphonally until the last
eight bars, where the two choirs came together for �et in saecula saeculorum�. This
seemed fairly straightforward after the complications of Christe redemptor omnium,
and we did not attempt to explore it in any depth. It was with somewhat diminishing
energies (notwithstanding the sustenance derived from consumption of Mary and
Michael Reynor�s excellent teatime provisions) that we ended by singing twice through
Mouton�s calm and peaceful Salva nos, Domine, which provided a fitting conclusion to
a an arduous, but immensely satisfying day�s singing.
We are all indebted to John for his patience, good humour and expertise in taking us
through his well-chosen programme, and surely we would all agree that, if the
selected works by Jacquet of Mantua and Loyset Pieton are in any way representative
of their general quality, these are composers whose music deserves to be much more
widely known. Warmest thanks are also due to Neil for organising the event and to
Mary and Michael Reynor for their admirable catering.
Sidney Ross
TVEMF Baroque Dance and Orchestra Workshop
at West Byfleet Junior School 21st June
This was something of a nostalgia trip, venturing into TVEMF territory, as I was
actually brought up in the (then) village of West Byfleet (between Woking and
Weybridge). There were 24 participants either playing in the band or learning the
steps of baroque dance, although many of us moved from one group to the other.
Julian Perkins took the orchestra, which could field 3 baroque oboes, 3 violins, 1-2
baroque flutes, 2 viols, recorder, keyboard, theorbo, bassanello etc. While the dancers
did their warm-ups, the players grouped into a small band. Unfortunately, there were
not always enough parts to go round, and I wondered if this was a ploy to get some of
the instrumentalists on their feet. The dance tutor was Philippa Waite, resplendent in
wig and costume, and accompanied in the demonstrations with her partner, Matthew.
Philippa is running some summer dance courses in her native Cardiff.
Like music, the different dances are built up from smaller building blocks, such as
�coup�, �pas de bourr�e� etc. Practising these is the dancing equivalent of scales and
arpeggios. The problem is to fit them in in time and to end up on the correct foot �
there should be a 50-50 chance of getting the foot right, but experience shows that
there is an 85% chance of getting it wrong! The band played dance movements from
trio sonatas and suites by composers such as Quantz and Lully, which seemed to fit
the dance steps well. It was a good discipline for keeping a steady tempo, and not
speeding up or slowing down at cadences, which can �wrong-foot� the dances. We also
learned to carry the music over the bar-lines, as, for example, in minuets where the
units are two three-four bars. The day started with a bourr�e, and progressed to a
gigue, via a sarabande and a minuet, the latter reprised in a circle.
The school is a convenient venue, within walking distance from West Byfleet station,
and we rehearsed in a main room, which seemed to be a general purpose gym,
theatre, large classroom etc. The dancers found that the floor could have done with a
bit more polish to aid their smooth steps. Outside was a pool frequented by a couple
of pied wagtails.
Many thanks to Judith Hughes for organizing a very jolly and instructive day.
Tim Samuelson
This review originally appeared in the SEMF newsletter and is reprinted with
permission.